*** Isotope 217[[ordmasculine]]

LARRY LEVAN'S CLASSIC WEST END RECORDS REMIXES

(Thrill Jockey)

Bristling with the energetic improvisations of Chicago's free-jazz/post-rock finest, the second release by this Tortoise spinoff also pulses with the presence of a more covert quantity -- the cut-and-paste editing of Bundy K. Brown and John McEntire's dubby post-production. Without warning, they drop us into the leadoff track, "LUH," Bitches Brew-style -- smack dab in the middle of a ferocious jazzy organ-led vamp that suddenly decomposes into soothing static and fuzz. Entire songs -- at least the organic foundations of them -- are subtly reworked into inventive studio creations. The somber trip-hop of "New Beyond," for example, shape-shifts into an ambient-dub vista where distant hi-hats sizzle and snare hits take on a life of their own. And the coda of "Looking After Life on Mars" reconfigures the choppy funk groove of the song into a dark-house drum-machine-and-synthesizer workout. The result is an unclassifiable fusion that owes as much to Miles Davis jazz as it does to Brian Eno atmospherics and the electro-collages of the Ninja Tune techno-turntablists.

-- Michael Endelman